Both my mum and my friends have always introduced me to strangers as a writer. But I’ve always wondered if scribbling down incoherent thoughts with a loose attempt at stringing them together really justified me as a writer. Why yes, I love to write. But does that really constitute me as a writer? Just because a boy enjoys his science class doesn’t make him a chemist. I used to argue with myself that I wasn’t truly a writer because nothing I had written had ever been published. Nothing I had written had ever changed a life. I guess I can dispute the first claim now, as I write for The Odyssey (obviously). Still, this title bugs me. Because who am I to dare sit down and write when in reality I have barely stood up to live?
It always amazed me that some of the greatest writers -- J.D. Salinger, Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner -- were also some of the most reclusive people in history. How can an individual capture so much emotion, excitement and thoughtfulness when they have failed to escape the confinement of four walls when they have a tendency to interact with other humans through the mail slot rather than opening the door? I understand that the isolation allowed them infinite time to think, to read, to dream. I understand that sometimes sitting on the sidelines offers you the best view of what is really happening. But I don’t know, I want to experience what I’m writing. I want to feel the emotions before I pen them on paper. I don’t want to live through what I write; I want to live what I write.
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I think that when I was younger, I used to write for the same reasons Salinger, Dickinson and Faulkner did (on a smaller scale, obviously). I had little of my own adventures to chronicle, so I channeled the epics that I dreamed of and read into my own writing. However, I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older, my writing acts more as a means for me to communicate my thoughts. Due to my ADHD, my mind has always been a giant jumble, making it difficult for me to sometimes get a coherent thought across when I’m talking. You see, I’m one of those people that figure out what they’re saying as they’re saying it; I reason out my logic as I’m employing it, rather than beforehand. As Michael Scott once said, “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence, and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way.” Writing has become a means of meeting myself, figuring out what thoughts and beliefs are obscured away in my gut, scattered across the inner workings of my mind. It’s crazy to me that sometimes I find myself writing a paragraph, and when I read it over after, I go, “This is it. This is what I believe. I have never been able to fully grasp it before this moment, but this completely encapsulates what I believe in, what I live for, in this moment of time.”
People have told me before that they admire me for pouring my thoughts onto a page; they could never be that brave. They could never be so honest with themselves as to transcribe their pure, unfiltered feelings into a document, let alone share it with the world to read. They can't commit to the idea of being linked to their thoughts and feelings from their young adult years forever. They fear the rejection; not necessarily from others, but from themselves. They fear they might not like what they have to say; they fear they might find themselves with nothing to say.
I think it’s silly to be afraid of your own thoughts. If we can’t stand up and face our own mind, how are we ever going to truly know who we are and where we stand in this world? I’m the first person to admit that I am an absolute mess and have nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion- but at least I’m trying. By picking up a pen, by sitting down at a computer with a Word document pulled up, I’m attempting to sort through that confusion and learn more about myself, who I am at 19 years old, and what it is that I stand for and believe in. I realize that in a year I’ll probably look back and laugh at myself. I’ll laugh at some of the notions I held, at some of the sentences I typed and believed to be so profound. People are constantly changing, and that is part of the beauty of life. I am endlessly creating myself as I travel through this world, and broadcasting my thoughts as little pinpoints to indicate where I am on this journey called life. I might not consider what I do significant enough to earn me the title of “writer,” but others might because it’s something they can’t imagine themselves ever doing.
However, I’m not necessarily as chained to my thoughts as some may think one is when they write. I am chained to nothing in this life, and I think writing is the best way to express that, the best way to be and to feel free. You simply fill your paper with the breathings of your heart, the chaos of your mind. And in the end, what is more freeing than creating your own world with your own words?
